Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

Glasnost is a policy of the Soviet government allowing freer discussion of social problems.
Perestroika was the term given to the reform process launched in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. Meaning "reconstruction" or "restructuring," perestroika was a concept that was both ambiguous and malleable.

With Stalin's death in 1953 the Soviet Union began a period of political and intellectual ferment. In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin and paved the way for a major restructuring of the Soviet Union's political system and economic administration. For young party activists like Gorbachev this was a period of exciting innovations and challenges.